Wanda also claimed she didn’t see any cookies. She said John told her he was just out walking around, and that after he came home he took a bath.
According to Wanda, Dave had not been drinking that night.
She told the detectives that Dave got quiet after Jamie was arrested and that John got angry.
John told his mother, “They’re trying to pin a murder case on me.” Dave would not discuss anything with her.
On May 26, 1993, John Balser’s three cousins, Robby Detwiler, Willie Jackson, and Frank Fisher, submitted to having their blood drawn for DNA testing.
John Balser gave two more rambling statements to Sergeant Moody and Detective Graeber on May 27 and June 2. On May 27 John asked the deputy at the jail if he could do him a favor and get in touch with Sergeant Moody or “Sergeant” Graeber. Deputy Pat Ford asked if he wanted to let his attorney know that he was going to talk to Sergeant Moody. John replied, “Fuck the attorney—I want to talk with Sergeant Moody.”
After John was brought over from the jail, Sergeant Graeber read him his rights.
Graeber: Who else was down there with you?
John: Was me, Jamie, Dave, and Frank. Willie, Robby, and Wanda wasn’t with us. My mom was at work that night.
Graeber (frustrated): There had to be someone else too, John, because we know that none of those guys had sex with them. And we know you didn’t have sex with them. Okay? Now who had sex with them? Straight up.
(John told them that it was Wade Aston*, an employee at the salvage yard across the street from Strahler’s Warehouse.)
John (sounding puzzled): And something else been bugging me. Where I was painting at, on Linden Avenue . . . Dave’s saying that was involved in that scene. That wasn’t involved, Mooo-nee. That house wasn’t involved that night. No. I one lock it up; I only one know how to lock it up.
Moody: When you got done painting, what did you do?
John: I went after doughnuts and cookies.
Moody: Did you ever go back home before that?
John: I went back home, got some money and all.
Moody: Did anyone take anything away from there that belonged to the girls?
John: Dave had those panties.
(John rambled aimlessly for several minutes and then said something about a bag.)
Moody: What bag you talking about, John?
John (stammering): Uh—uh—a bakery bag . . . I recognized it. Dave took it out of our house.
Moody: What was in the bakery bag?
John: Those panties. I’m telling you the honest-to-God truth.
Moody: Who had sex with them?
John: Dave, Frank, and Jamie.
Moody: All right, now, what do you mean by sex? What’s sex, John, to you?
John (answering bluntly): Like people fucking, being plain out simple. I have sex with my girlfriend.
Graeber: What it boils down to, John, is who stuck their “thing” in the girls?
John: I didn’t see who done it. If it be truthful, if you guys do a blood work on Frank, it come back, be him.
Moody: How come before you never told us that Frank was down there with you?
John: I didn’t want to get Frank involved. Me and Frank go back a long ways. See, me and Frank [are] like brothers. I look out for Frank.
Moody: John, did anybody go back to the scene after the murders?
John: No . . . as far as I know.
Moody: Did your mom go down there?
John: No, I know she wouldn’t. What I can’t figure out, “Sergeant” Graeber, why keep on putting her through the hurt?
Moody: John, the next day after all this happened—it was a Sunday—what did you do that day?
John: I went over there and finished Linden up. Dave, me, both boys, and my mom. I stayed over there till I got it done.
Moody: Okay, when did you tell your mom what happened that night?
John: I told her like a week after that. I said, “Mom, it done time to tell you Dave did murder.”
Moody: Now, your mom loves you, doesn’t she?
John: Yeah, I’m trying to help her out too.
Moody: Listen to me a minute, because the guys in charge think that your . . . Since you told your mom so quick, what’s the first thing she’s going to do? She’s going to try to help her son, right? And she’s going to tell you what to do with it (evidence), or try to get rid of things for you. Now how else are we going to be able to tell that you’re telling the truth, unless you tell us the truth about what you know and where the stuff went and where we can find it now?
John: Far as I know, it should’ve been right at the scene still.
Moody: No, now you know as well as I do, there was stuff taken away from there.
John: I didn’t take nothing, Graeber. I’m telling you the truth.
Moody: And you’ve made the statement, and you know you did, that if we don’t get that evidence we “ain’t got nothing” on you. And, John, that’s not true. We do. You’re in jail, aren’t you? And I know you’re upset about your mom; I would be upset about my mom too. You love her. But you got to think now, because you know we talk to her. She calls me; I don’t call her. She’s worried about helping you.
(John continued to insist that he didn’t know where “the stuff was at.”)
John (exasperated): I told you guys the truth. I don’t know what else to do. If I knowed, why in the world I ain’t saying now?
On June 2, John Balser again asked the deputy on duty at the jail to get a message to Moody and Graeber. “I want to talk to those again,” he said. “I want to talk to Moody or Graeber. Tell them today, not fucking tomorrow!”
They read him his rights again.
Graeber: Okay, the night . . . Who’d you take back down to the scene that night?
John: My mom. My mom couldn’t believe it. She said, “Son, you been involved?” I said, “No, Mom, I didn’t do nothing.” She said, “Son, you did anything to them?” I said, “No.” I said, “I didn’t have sex [or] either rape those little children, Mom.” She didn’t believe it—about David would be that way.
Graeber: Did your mom scream when you took her down there?
John: My mom didn’t do nothing, couldn’t believe Dave did that.
(As the interview continued, John became furious with the detectives, yelling and screaming at them and denying that he had done anything.)
Moody: John, quit lying. That’s it! Quit lying!
John: I ain’t lying!
Moody: You told us earlier you hit Phree by accident.
John: Then you guys took another tape and I said No! I didn’t hit her, Mooo-nee. I didn’t hold her down. I didn’t hold her down!
Moody: Well, I’m tired of you lying to us.
John (screaming and pounding the table): I didn’t hold her down! I know a goddamn if I did or not! I know I didn’t hit no one and I ain’t been up there! I know I ain’t been up there, man. Every time I come over here, say motherfuckin’ bullshit!
Moody (calmly reminding him): You’re the one that’s wanting to come over.
On June 11, 1993, Judge Geyer dropped all charges against John Balser, also without prejudice, at the request of Schumaker.
Many people wondered how the prosecutor could let these “killers” back out on the streets. They did not understand how he could let these accused men go free.
Steve Schumaker firmly believed he had the best chance of obtaining a conviction against David Marciszewski; therefore, it was his intention to concentrate all his efforts, for now, on him. The hope was that he would plead guilty, cooperate, and lead the authorities to the elusive individual whose DNA had been found in the semen recovered from the bodies of Phree and Martha.
David Marciszewski remained in the Clark County Jail. James Doughty, his attorney, waived David’s right to a speedy trial. His trial was set for January 18, 1994, after being postponed from June 8, 1993.
On Tuesday, August 3, 1993, Detective Barry Eggers and Sergeant Steve Moody talked t
o Wanda Marciszewski.
Moody: Joe Jackson indicated that you had some concerns over the weekend. What were those?
Wanda: John said, “Mom, I’m out of this mess, and if I get out freely, I will kill again. The first time was easy; the second time is going to be easier. I will kill again.”
Eggers: You truly believe in your heart that that’s going to happen?
Wanda: Yes, I do, because I’m scared about it. And he’s doing weird things—I mean like masturbating.
Moody: Does he talk to you about the murders?
Wanda: He talks about them. He’ll say, “Well, Mom, it’s been almost a year. They’re not going to find out nothing. The police are dumb.”
Eggers: Well, Wanda, one night almost a year ago, you made a very terrible mistake.
Wanda: Of doing what?
Eggers: Of going down [there] with John. Now if you can clear that up for us once and for all tonight, then we can get John.
Wanda: If I was there, I do not know it, you know. I’ll say it that way.
Moody: I mean, he may be your son, but you’re sitting here telling us that you’re terrified of him. And, you know, if you went back down there on the thought of helping them out, I understand it. You’re a mother, but you need to let that go now.
Eggers: Who was covering them up? Let me ask you this—did you help?
Wanda: No.
Eggers: So you’re standing there and they’re doing what?
Wanda: Covering them up with leaves and stuff. They didn’t touch them while I was there, you know. I screamed because I was panicky.
Eggers: And you’re sure Boone drove you?
Wanda: Yes. They kept me there for a little bit. About an hour or something. I couldn’t move because I was like I was froze. They’re covering them like—covering them up with limbs and stuff, you know—getting ready to bury them because they said they had to bury them. They didn’t say anything to me about having sex with the girls. They just said they had to die. That they had their own cemetery—that somebody had to die.
Eggers: Think real hard about this, and if you don’t know, say so. At the scene you saw the two girls there. Could you see both of their heads?
Wanda: No. Because, huh-uh. ’Cause it looks like . . . ’cause ... (crying) Oh, God!
Moody: Calm down, Wanda.
Eggers: I understand it’s hard. Do you want a glass of water?
Wanda (hysterical): It looks like their heads is bashed in. I could see their heads. I could see the blood and I asked why they took the little girls’ lives. I said, “Why did you murder?” And they said that “white honkeys had to die and they was tramps.” And I said, “The girls is not tramps, you know. They’ve got a right to live here on this earth the same as any of us does.” And they said that they “just had to die.”
(After regaining her composure, Wanda continued: “It was already done before I got there, you know. The rape and stuff was already done.”)
Eggers: So in your opinion, they were dead when you got there?
Wanda: Yes.
(Except for the fact that Alexander Boone’s father was black, everyone else involved was white, including Wanda. Therefore, her claim that “they” said that “white honkeys had to die” did not make sense. Much of what she told the detectives was difficult to comprehend.
Wanda: Boone took us back to the house.
Eggers: Directly from there to the house?
Moody: You didn’t go anywhere else? Now, this is important.
Wanda: No, I didn’t. I went home because I was upset. I mean, I didn’t want to go no more. Dave just told me that he wouldn’t tell me nothing. ’Cause he told me I had to go to bed because I had to go to work the next morning.
Moody: Why . . . I guess, Wanda . . . Why didn’t you turn them in?
Wanda: Because I was too upset and, you know, I just tried to more or less block it out. I just wanted to forget it.
Moody: Wanda, are you telling us the truth?
Wanda: Yes, I am.
Moody: Did you go down there?
Wanda: Yes, I did.
Eggers: Have you told anybody else this?
Wanda: No. I just more or less wanted to keep it to myself, keep it blocked out. That’s why I ask you to rearrest him because I am scared of him, you know. Because once he knows that I turned it in, then he’s gonna be mad at me again.
Eggers: Has John ever told you that there is anybody else involved in this?
Wanda: No, he just said there was five of them, but I can’t believe about Frank. I mean, I cannot believe about that boy.
Eggers: And Frank wasn’t with you when you went down there?
Wanda: No, he was not. He was not with me.
Eggers: This is important, Wanda. There are people telling us that Saturday afternoon, they saw David and John down there at the bakery in a van—a bluish green window van with a bunch of trash in it. Any idea who that could be?
Wanda: I don’t know who it could be. That’s what Moody asked me and I said I didn’t know, you know.
Eggers: Did you help them in any way?
Wanda: No.
Eggers: For your son’s sake—for your husband’s sake...
Wanda: No, I would not touch a body.
Eggers: Well, I’m saying that somebody there was smart enough to get rid of all the evidence.
Wanda: No, I did not get rid of nothing.
Moody: Did you tell them that they needed to?
Wanda: No, I did not.
Eggers: The following day after everything happened, did anybody go down there again?
Wanda: No.
Eggers: What was the next day like?
Wanda: To me, it was like hell.
Two days later, on August 5, 1993, John Balser told Sergeant Moody and Detective Graeber that his “best friend,” Jason Holmes*, was the one who raped Martha and Phree. And he now claimed that the initial attack had taken place at the house on Linden Avenue.
John: And I seen Jason rape those on Linden and that scene, Mooo-nee. Jason was already up on Linden. That when I heared [sic] those girls. When girls came up with Jamie and Boone, they went on upstairs. I heared someone screaming. I seen someone up in the attic. Jason Holmes . . . Jamie Turner and Boone.
Graeber: Where were the girls?
John: Up there with Jason, Boone, and Jamie. I’ll be straight out, Mooo-nee—raping those. After those got done, Mooo-nee, they put something in her mouth [so] she couldn’t scream, and covered those up. I don’t know where blankets come from. They put blankets over those girls. They went down and behind the scene where you guys found . . . and those have sex again. Jason—just Jason Holmes—no one else. Have it with both girls and I seen Dave have a stick, Mooo-nee. Dave stuck it up that girl’s thing.
Graeber: How did you guys get from the house on Linden to the pond?
John: That black truck—Boone’s. They laid those girls down in bed (of truck). I tried talk them into not hurting those. They wouldn’t listen to me, Mooo-nee.
Graeber: Where did you go from Linden Avenue?
John: To that scene where those girls met death (at the pond).
Moody: Did you help carry them from the truck to the pond?
John: I carried Phree . . . and laid her down.
Graeber: Let me ask you something, John. If we told you that Jason Holmes didn’t have sex with the girls, who would it be then?
John: I don’t know, Graeber. I don’t know, [to] be truthful with you. I’m being straight up. I don’t really know.
Every time John gave them a new name, there was more DNA testing, always with the hope that this time he was telling the truth.
Jason Holmes no longer lived in Springfield; he had since moved to South Carolina. So Sergeant Moody and Detective Graeber made the long, time-consuming drive south to collect a sample of Jason’s blood. They placed it in a cooler and iced it down for the trip home, only to find out later that, once again, John Balser had lied to them.
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nbsp; We knew. . . . We just looked at each other. . . . “He’s still out there. . . . He’s still here.”
—Captain Steve Moody
Even though the police did not want to take the report, her family knew that Belinda was missing. The officer said she would probably show up in a few days, but her worried family members insisted on filing a missing persons report. There was “no way” she would stay away this long without calling.
Hometown Killer Page 10